Landmarc Films, makers of the critically acclaimed Marathi film, Pipsi, announced the winners of ‘FilmShala 2018’, an innovative initiative taken up by them during the release of the film.

In order to increase the reach of Marathi cinema amongst children along with adding to the film viewing experience of students, Landmarc Films started FilmShala through which one film in their slate would be screened across schools in Maharashtra every year. This school contact program started with their film Pipsi that released in the month of July this year.

‘FilmShala’ that included a set of competitions on film appreciation writing for these students, was received with great enthusiasm and turned out to be a huge success.

The film starring award-winning child artistes Maithili Patwardhan and Sahil Joshi, was screened for over 12,000 students all across Maharashtra in theatres close to their respective schools. Interestingly, these students also had access to a resource base created by Landmarc Films on how to view and review a film. The competition was judged by accomplished actors Sachin Pilgaonkar and Divya Dutta along with former CFSI committee member and writer, Kamlakar Nadkarni.

On having received some amazing reviews from school students for Pipsi and the response to FilmShala, Vidhi Kasliwal of Landmarc Films said, “I have always felt that there is a dearth of quality children’s content around us and with Pipsi we wanted to experiment with the format of taking meaningful and thought-provoking cinema to kids. I’m very pleased to see the overwhelming response we got and it was heart-warming to interact with the students post each screening. I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of maturity and understanding that the kids of today have. And it was eye-opening to learn what they took away from the film. Initiatives like these will help converting our future audience to a more thinking one which will in-turn push us to better the quality of our films and their subjects. With this goal in mind, I’m very keen to make FilmShala an annual occurrence.”

The winners will be given exciting prizes including digital video cameras and telescopes as a token of encouragement.